You see,
Jerry, I've only just begun to realize it myself."
Jerry was staring at her blankly.
"Do you mean, that you wish you hadn't come?" he said.
She nodded, rising suddenly from her chair.
"Oh, Jerry, don't be vexed, though you've a perfect right. I've made a
ghastly, a perfectly hideous mistake. I--I can't think how I ever came to
do it. But--but I wouldn't mind so frightfully if it weren't for you.
That's what troubles me most--to have made a horrible mess of my life,
and to have dragged you into it." Her voice shook, and she broke off for
a moment, biting her lips. Then: "Oh, Jerry," she wailed, "I've done a
dreadful thing--a dreadful thing! Don't you see it--what he will think of
me--how he will despise me?"
The last words came muffled through her hands. Her head was bowed against
the chimney-piece.
Jerry was nonplussed. He rose somewhat awkwardly, and drew near the bowed
figure.
"But, my dear girl," he said, laying a slightly hesitating hand upon her
shoulder, "what the devil does it matter what he thinks? Surely you
don't--you can't care--care the toss of a half-penny?"
But here she amazed him still further.
"I do, Jerry, I do!" she whispered vehemently. "He's horrid--oh, he's
horrid. But I can't help caring. I wanted him to think the very worst
possible of me before I came. But now--but now--Then too, there's you,"
she ended irrelevantly.
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